SIMILAK STORES FEOM THE SWISS LAKES. 139 



M. Troyon, in his report on the researches made at Concise in 1861,* 

 mentions that there were obtained "twelve stone disks, from 13 lines to 

 2 inches in diameter, and from 2 to 8 lines in thickness, which have a fun- 

 nel-shaped hollow on each side or face. The incomplete hollows on two 

 of them enable us to perceive the workman's mode of procedure. He com- 

 menced by cutting away the stone by gentle strokes of an angular instru- 

 ment, working first on o.ne side of the disk or plate and then on the other, 

 and when the two hollows met he finished the boring by turning a punch — 

 of silex, no doubt — rapidly round and round, until he had smoothed away 

 all the inequalities left by the first operation. The use of these plates or 

 disks of various kinds of rock is doubtful as yet. They ma} T have served 

 as spindle-whorls or as weights for a net. A small pebble, oval in form 

 and pierced on both sides so as to be suspended from a string, would seem 

 rather to indicate the latter as their use." 



A tvpical " spindle-whorl of very hard stone," from the lake of Varese, 

 is figured in Keller's Lake Dwellings.f Another of sandstone, from the 

 lake of Bom-get, is represented in the same work.J 



Of the irregular or rude forms of perforated disks found in the Swiss 

 lakes, and corresponding with many found in the United States, there are 

 some from the lake of Neuchatel, which are described in M. Louis Ro- 

 chat's report, translated by Mr. Lee, by whom the figures are reproduced § 

 Of the specimen represented by his Fig. 5, M. Rochat writes: "An 

 irregularly-shaped pebble, pierced with a great hole If intended as a 

 hammer, it must have been a very inconvenient one." M. Rochat also 

 doubts the adaptability of many of the perforated stones as spindle-whorls. 

 Certainly such rude and eccentric specimens as his Figs. 4 and 5 represent 

 can hardly be regarded as anything more than simple stone weights, possi- 

 bly for fish-nets, for which purpose it seems more likely they were used 

 than the larger and carefully-made implement figured by M. Figuier|| as a 

 net-sinker. Professor Desor had previously figured just such a specimen 

 as the one last mentioned, and stated that he believed " such stones to have 



"Translated in the Smithsonian Report for 1851. § L. c, pi. ciii, figs. 3, 4, 5. 

 tLee's translation, 2d ed., pi. clxii, fig. 13. || Primitive Man, fig. 79. 



t PI. cliii, fig. 5. 



